The Riddle Game
by KaleidescopeCat
Summary: Sent to the North by the King, Faramir stops at Rivendell and there meets someone he did not expect.


THE RIDDLE GAME

THE RIDDLE GAME

By KaleidescopeCat

Written for the Spring Faramir Fic Exchange on the FaramirExchange community on LJ. All characters and places belong to Tolkien.

Though visiting Imladris was something Faramir had longed to do since he had first heard its name in his dreams, he found himself wanting to leave again almost as soon as he had arrived.

They had come, he and a mixed company of men-at-arms, scribes, nobles, and councilors, to make a tour of the King's northern realms. Rivendell was a respite from long weeks of travel and the source of many a wondrous tale to take back home. Like the rest of his company, Faramir had eagerly anticipated their arrival, yet now that they were here his excitement waned. In truth, he found his mind filled by thoughts of his brother. Each day he found himself wondering if Boromir had eaten there, or sparred here, or slept there; most of all, he thought of the Ring, and could not stop thinking that here It had begun to capture his brother in its thrall.

One morning, restless, Faramir wandered away from the others after breakfast and found at the end of a long, empty corridor the library, every wall filled with books, scrolls, and maps. He scanned the titles on the spines and found a veritable wealth of poetry and old tales, some familiar and others he had never before seen.

"Here is somewhere Boromir never went!" Faramir joked out loud, smiling at the thought, for he had often teased his brother about his aversion to books not related to matters of war or soldiering.

"Ah, but there you are wrong," said a voice from behind him, and Faramir nearly leapt out of his skin. Heart pounding, he turned around, and there, sitting in a beam of the warm summer sun, was the most ancient being Faramir had ever seen, and one he had least expected—a hobbit, white-haired and wrinkled, looking very small indeed in an Elf-sized armchair.

"Boromir came to this library quite often," said the old hobbit, sitting up straighter in the chair. "When he was not out on patrol with the Elves and the Rangers, of course." He beckoned Faramir over, gesturing to the footstool next to him.

"You must be Bilbo Baggins," Faramir said, sitting down. "Pippin—er, Peregrin Took, that is—told me a good deal about you."

"Pippin! Oh, what a rascal that one is," Bilbo said, clapping his hands together with a grin. "Gandalf is very fond of him, and so am I. And you are Faramir, of course. You have the look of your brother about you. Not quite like, mind you, but enough for one to tell. We hobbits are very good at such things as relations, you know."

"Oh yes," Faramir said, grinning. "I can't repeat it, but I did hear every single one of the ways Pippin, Merry, and Frodo are related to each other. Took them all of first breakfast and half of second!"

Bilbo chuckled. "And there we are," he said with a wink. "You look much pleasanter when you smile, lad. A face so very dour as yours was when you walked in here doesn't suit you a bit. Those were very weighty thoughts indeed, if I'm not mistaken."

"Rivendell is not what I expected," Faramir admitted. "Here I am, in a place straight out of legend, the stuff of stories come to life! Yet I cannot stop thinking of my brother. It has been well over two years, and yet, being here, it suddenly seems as fresh as if it had happened yesterday."

"So it is with many who go before us," said Bilbo gravely. "I never can smell Southern Star pipe-weed without thinking of my old grandfather Mungo Baggins, though he's been gone and away for more years than I like to count now. It's the little things like that that bring the ones we miss back to us."

"Boromir was here for only a short time," Faramir said. "Yet this was one of the last places he spent any length of time at all. It seems as though I can see nothing here without missing him."

"That is the mood of the place now, that longing," Bilbo said, "but not only for that reason, though it is quite reason enough. Elrond will sail from these shores very soon, and with him most of the Elves in these lands. Already he misses those he must leave behind, and one in particular whom he will never see again, most likely."

"The Queen," Faramir said.

"Yes," said Bilbo, very solemnly. "It's like a very sad story that you cry when it ends, but in this case it is real and hasn't ended at all. And I suppose, them being Elves and all, it won't end very soon either."

Faramir could think of nothing to say to this, and for a time they sat in silence, looking out at the summer's day outside. At last he glanced back at the old hobbit, whose eyes had drooped shut. He sat for a little while longer, and just as he was thinking he should leave the old hobbit to his nap, Bilbo came awake with a snort and gazed blearily at Faramir.

"Welcome back!" said Faramir, laughing at the befuddled look on the hobbit's face.

"Forgive me, lad! I seem to doze off at the drop of a hat these days. Now, I've thought of something that will take our minds of such serious matters. You never did ask me why your brother spent so much time in the library here," and with that, Bilbo scrambled off of his chair and tottered with surprising quickness off into the stacks. Faramir hastily followed.

In a little alcove in the back of the library sat a hobbit-sized desk, nearly buried under unfurled scrolls, pens, empty inkbottles, and page after page of loose drawings and notes. "My writings," said Bilbo proudly, patting the sheaves of notes. He began to shuffle through the papers. "Frodo has most of them, as well as the proper book itself, and he's nearly finished up his part by now, I hope. Boromir read some of it, when he was here—'course, it wasn't so long then as it is now."

"I think I've heard of this book," Faramir said. "Your travels, wasn't it? There and Back Again? Frodo told me some of the tales of your adventures. I believe Aragorn's asked to have a copy made for the archives in Gondor. And Boromir read your book?"

"He got through quite a few of the things in here," Bilbo said, still sorting through his papers. "I saw him now and again, reading things with a terrible scowl most of the time, and I asked him if he liked what he was reading. Told me he didn't, really, but that his brother the scholar would like to know some of the stories here and so he was reading things he thought you mightn't have seen before."

"I wish he had been able to tell me some of them," Faramir said, sadly, "for he was right enough. There are many things here I would very much like to read, if I have the time for it."

"Rivendell is a very good place for sitting and thinking—or sitting and reading, if that is what you like to do," Bilbo agreed. "I asked him if he wanted to read my book, because then he could tell you the story, and so he did. But I suppose you know it already, don't you?"

"Yes, the others told it to me," said Faramir. "Did Boromir like what he had read?"

"Very much," Bilbo said. "A grand adventure, he called it! Of course it didn't seem so grand while it was happening, but that is the way of such things. There was one part he liked best of all. I suppose you've heard of old Gollum and the riddle game, haven't you?" he asked with a glint in his eye.

"Yes," said Faramir, "I have heard the story. I didn't hear it until after I met him, and it seems strange to think of him liking riddles. A very queer individual, Gollum."

"You met Gollum, did you?" said Bilbo, curiously.

"In Ithilien. We captured him in one of our camps after I found Sam and Frodo in the forest."

"What was the story you heard?" Bilbo asked.

"What do you mean, the story I heard?" Faramir asked curiously.

Bilbo gave him a strange, almost shifty, look. "Nothing at all," he said, and it was not until years later, when Faramir finally read a copy of the Red Book himself, that he realized what Bilbo had meant. But he had no time to think about it at that moment, because Bilbo went on, saying, "Boromir read the riddle part, and at once began to ask me riddles of his own, when he'd found out I liked them so."

Faramir laughed. "He had a rather good store of them, didn't he? I'd nearly forgotten that. He didn't tell very many riddles when we had grown up, but I wager he remembered every one of them."

Bilbo grinned. "Oh yes. Do you remember this one? What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps?"

"Easy," said Faramir. "A river! Here is one that took me days to figure out. Boromir told it to me when I was nine and I was determined to find it out on my own. One says, Let's go! One says, Let's stay! One says, Let's dance! One says, Let's fly! Boromir gloated the whole time, but I wouldn't let him tell me the answer. He never would have let me forget it if I had given up, of course!"

"That is a tricky one," said Bilbo. He sat down at the desk, propping his head on his hand. "I have it!" he said after a few moments. "It is the sea—water, sand, foam, and wind."

"Very good," Faramir said, smiling. "I might have figured it out more quickly if we had been visiting my mother's people in Dol Amroth, but in Minas Tirith the sea does not come to mind so very easily."

"Another," said Bilbo. "Feed me and I live; give me drink and I die. What am I?"

"An easy one again," Faramir said, though he did not smile as widely as before. "Fire."

"Forgive me, I should not have told that one," Bilbo said suddenly, with a worried look at the Steward.

"I take it Frodo has included that story in your book as well," Faramir said wryly. He smiled. "It is a good riddle, and I remember Boromir telling it. It should be told still. If I jumped every time I heard the word, Master Baggins, I would never get anything done at all."

"I shall tell another to make up for it," Bilbo said, with a cheeky smile. "A most difficult one indeed. But I shall have to think of it first, to make it especially challenging for you."

"I shall look forward to hearing it," said Faramir, returning the grin.

"Now," said the old hobbit, with a wink, "riddle-thinking is hungry work. Shall we go and see what's for second breakfast?"

As the days of their stay went on, Faramir found Rivendell a much happier place, and indeed, was loathe to go when the time of their departure drew near. He had spoken with the old hobbit many times since that first meeting, for Bilbo wanted to know all about Minas Tirith and Gondor, and Faramir found the hobbit an endless fount of knowledge about dragons and dwarves and everything in between. Very pleasant those conversations had been, ranging over the entire world and everything that lay in it.

On the last day, they said their goodbyes to the Elves in the courtyard. A tearful affair these goodbyes were, for the Men knew that very soon now their friends would be leaving to take the ship from the Grey Havens across the sea. But in spite of this, many laughs were shared as well, ringing through the courtyard with joyful abandon.

Faramir felt a tug on his tunic and looked down; there stood Bilbo, leaning heavily on a cane. "Come down here," said the hobbit, and Faramir knelt. "I've finally thought of that riddle I promised you."

"I had thought of that," said Faramir. "But I did not want to ask, in case it was so hard I could not figure it out before we left!"

"Oh, I will tell you the answer," Bilbo said, winking. "You'll want to know this answer."

"All right. What is the riddle, then?"

"Here it is," said Bilbo. "What have I got in my pocket?"

"That's not a fair riddle," Faramir said with a laugh. "You tricked Gollum with it but you shan't trick me."

"Ah, well challenged," said Bilbo. "But I have got something in my pocket for you after all, and I won't even make you guess what it is." From his jacket he drew out a slim package wrapped in brown paper. Faramir took it and turned it over with a frown.

"Go on, open it!" said Bilbo.

Nestled inside the paper was a slim little book, bound in black leather and stamped with the white tree. Faramir opened the cover and read on the first page, _Riddles and Tales of the White City, as related to Bilbo Baggins by the brothers Boromir and Faramir of Gondor._ He flipped through the pages. "Boromir wrote some of these!" he cried, finding his brother's handwriting.

"I asked the Elves to bind his notes into a book for you," said Bilbo, shuffling from one foot to the other in his excitement. "Boromir had written down as many riddles as he could think of for me, and then when it was bound I added in the tales you both told me, and there are pages left for you to add in more as well."

"It is a wonderful gift," said Faramir, quite touched, and put his arms around the old hobbit.

"It is a far better present than some I have given—or gotten," said Bilbo, with a funny tone in his voice, and returned the embrace. "I hope it will bring you joy."

"I shall treasure it," Faramir assured him, "and I shall make sure to fill it. Thank you, Bilbo."

His men were mounted and waiting for him; Faramir embraced the hobbit one last time. "I shall not be seeing you again, I think," said Bilbo, "but it has been quite lovely to meet you. Goodbye, Faramir. I hope you will think on me as well as your brother when you read it."

"I shall indeed," said Faramir. "Goodbye, Bilbo."

The hobbit stood back as he mounted, and spurred on his men, and every time Faramir looked back, he saw the small figure next to Lord Elrond waving furiously, until he was out of sight and could see him no longer. And then they were off in the summer sunlight, and when they passed that way again in the late autumn after their travels through the North were finished Faramir was not at all surprised to find from Elrond's sons that Bilbo had taken the ship from the Havens, and Frodo with him.

The little book he put in his own library in Ithilien, and when his sons and daughters were old enough, "Uncle Boromir's riddle-book" became a favorite among them. And not a one ever got tired of the riddles inside.


End file.
